Siemens Slips Unexpectedly Deep into the Red

The company reported Wednesday in Munich that, without taking into account the losses of its chip subsidiary Infineon, and without one-time effects, its loss after taxes in the third quarter of fiscal year 2000/01 amounted to EUR 489 million (US$429 million). The reason for this was the "weakening economic environment." CEO Heinrich von Pierer called the performance "unsatisfactory." The group result for the entire year 2001 will "be below the level of the previous year," Pierer said.

Thanks to the transferal of Infineon shares to a pension fund and the resulting input tax proceeds of EUR 3.459 billion, the group still obtained a net gain of EUR 1.6 billion. The group stressed that, taking Infineon and any one-time effects into account, the result is a plus of EUR 1.608 billion.